BBWAA: Mark McGwire died for your sins

[heyabbott]

Oh, and it's BBWAA, by the way.

Not BBWA, whatever that is.

correction made, thanks

 

[DyePack]

I'm just saying that even if they had been more subdued, they just couldn't throw a lot of innuendo out there concerning steroids without anything concrete. And I'll repeat: Yes, the Chronicle guys DID do a heck of a reporting job. They also had a significant insider who put them in a position to do it.

Nothing's stopping the innuendo now, though.

 

[Smasher_Sloan]

To this day, I regret failing to convene a grand jury to investigate Mark McGwire's drug use.

It haunts me.

I'm sure Bob Woodward is pissing in his pants with the same regret about Richard Nixon. Oh, but that's real journalism, this is only sports. For slobs that couldn't play the game and writers that can't really write?
Are you a member of the BBWA? Did you vote for McGwire? Did you write a column celebrating baseball's rebirth due to Big Mac in 1998?

I'm not here to talk about the past.

 

[jay_christley]

I agree with what I think Abbott's point of contention:

(A) Baseball writers did not write about McGwire's "suspected" steroid use back in his glory days because they didn't have any proof, just speculation.
However, (B) baseball writers didn't vote McGwire for the Hall of Fame now, despite still not having any proof, just speculation.

 

[outofplace]

Point of note: Thomas Boswell wrote about the (Jose) Canseco shake probably back in like '90 ... of course, it was all conjecture. While many did ignore the possibility, I do wonder how any proof could have been obtained.

Well how many BBWA did not put McGwire's name on their HOF ballot because of conjecture?

If you are going to put it in print, you not only have to know it, you have to be able to prove it.

To take information into account when you cast a Hall of Fame vote, however, you don't need the proof. You need the knowledge.

 

[Eagleboy]

Well-played, Abbott. Well-played.

 

[Shaggy]

[McGwire may have [become a better player by using roids].

If 50-80% of the league (and probably even higher when you confine the sample size to sluggers only), took steroids, and Big Mac still outplayed most of them, wouldn't he still be signifantly better than them, enough so to deserve Hall of Fame induction?

No one's saying McGwire wasn't among the game's best players between 1996-2000. But his HOF credential (about his only one) is 583 home runs. Would he have even 500 homers without the juice?

Would he even have been playing by 1998? I have my doubts.

All this said, I would've voted for him.

 

[Nathan Scott Phillips]

Didn't anyone see HBO's Real Sports when Kapler and Curtis took drug tests on camera and spoke at length about how much pressure a four-A player has to juice? This was years before the Canseco and Caminiti things.

Personally, I don't think the public as a whole gave a shirt back then, and most of them wouldn't now. We've got hand-wringing writers weren't expressing their eternal shame for being duped, when most of the "insiders" knew full well (without on-the-record proof) that stuff was going on. It's not because journalists are stupid, but because they usually reflect the concerns and interests of their buying public. And people just didn't care then.

 

[Montezuma's Revenge]

Sorry, with the cloud over him, I just don't think you give him the highest honor the sport has.

This isn't a courtroom -- so the innocent-until-proven-guilty argument doesn't hold water. This is the court of public opinion, where you're allowed to draw inferences based on in the information you have.

And contrary to perception, it's not as if the HOF does any Orwellian erasing of the existence of a Pete Rose are a Mark McGwire. There are exhibits and artifacts featuring them.

They just don't get the plaque -- and the perks that come with it. And I'm totally at peace with them.

And please, let's give the scoundrels-are-already-in-the-Hall argument a rest.

Today's voters shouldn't be bound by the mistakes of the past. They're not bound the lowest common denominator.

If the HOF had to allow in every player who was better than Phil Rizzuto or Rabbit Maranville, they'd have to add 15 wings.

 

[heyabbott]

This isn't a courtroom -- so the innocent-until-proven-guilty argument doesn't hold water. This is the court of public opinion, where you're allowed to draw inferences based on in the information you have.

So what are the inferences available to the BBWAA voters now, that were not available to the BBWAA in 1996, 97, 98 & 99? And if you can't write about the inferences why should you use the inferences to justify not voting for him? Are all the virtuous baseball writers, refusing to write about McGwire's alleged use of juicy substances because they can't prove it, holding his Congressional testimony silence against him?

 

[Inky_Wretch]

Re: BBWA: Mark McGwire died for your sins

Shawn Merriman used illegal performance-enhancing drugs. He's in the Pro Bowl.

Yeah, I can't believe the baseball HoF voters didn't keep him out of the NFL's Pro Bowl.

 

[RedCanuck]

My only question would be how we have proof that McGwire and others of his ilk were the only ones who did something like this to get ahead. Steroids weren't illegal, and there have been many powerful hitters (and pitchers) over the years.

At least from what hockey players have said openly, and I presume the same applies in baseball to a degree, reporters decades ago were much more likely to look the other way than in our investigative, scoop-based culture today. Who knows what might have been done behind the veil of secrecy.

McGwire was always big and he hit 49 home runs as a rookie, playing in Oakland primarily, which was known as a pitchers' ballpark. In an era where everyone might have been juicing, and the ball might have been juiced too, it is hard to single some players out and not others without facts.